Making the Invisible Visible:  Black Women 365 Days of the Year

Black Heritage Futures is Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage’s flagship annual programme of professional development, dialogue and knowledge exchange.  Bringing together archivists, academics, artists, museum professionals, librarians, educators, community historians and cultural practitioners, the programme explores the vital role Black heritage plays in shaping our understanding of the past, informing the present and inspiring the future.

This roundtable discussion explores the importance of documenting Black women’s voices as part of Serendipity year-long commitment as part of Making the Invisible Visible: Black Women 365 Days of the Year.

Professor Verene A Shepherd

Verene A Shepherd, graduate of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Cambridge, is Professor Emerita of Social History at The UWI, a past University Director of The Institute for Gender and Development Studies, founding Director of the Centre for Reparation Research, also at the UWI, and CARICOM’S representative, former Chair and current Vice-Chair of the oldest UN Treaty Body, The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). She is also Hon. Fellow of Jesus College, University of Cambridge, a Vice-Chair of The CARICOM Reparations Commission and a member of the Jamaica National Council on Reparations.

In addition to her peer-reviewed articles and her co-authored and co-edited publications, she is the sole author of seven books, among them, Transients to Settlers: The Experiences of Indians in Jamaica, 1845-1950 (1994); Maharani’s Misery: Narratives of a Passage from India to the Caribbean (2002); I Want to Disturb my Neighbour: Lectures on Slavery, Emancipation and Post-Colonial Jamaica (2007), Livestock, Sugar and Slavery: Contested Terrain in Colonial Jamaica (2009) and The Biography of Lucille Mathurin Mair (2020).

She has received several awards, including The Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence for Public Service (2017) and the Order of Distinction, Commander Class from the Govt. of Jamaica for her work in History and Gender Studies and her public service. A much sought-after public speaker, she has delivered lectures on every continent except Antarctica!

Dr Joanna Brown

Dr Joanna Brown is a writer and educator whose work explores the ways in which creative writing can illuminate the lives and histories of Black people in Britain. She holds a degree in English Literature from Cambridge University and a Master’s and PhD in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. In addition to teaching undergraduate and master’s students, she has facilitated creative writing workshops for writers and would-be writers of all ages and stages, for organisations including the British Library, Somerset House and Black Cultural Archives.

Previously a primary school teacher, Brown writes for children under the name J.T. Williams. Her multi-award winning books, The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries, reimagine the world of Black Londoners in the eighteenth century, inspired by the lives and families of the writer Ignatius Sancho and Dido Belle of Kenwood House. Along with her collection of biographies entitled Bright Stars of Black British History, these books are used regularly in schools, with accompanying teaching resources.

Brown is now writing fiction for adults. Her current project is inspired by her own family history, showcasing the fascinating lives of early jazz musicians in London in the early twentieth century.